Mailbag: The First Edition

As a thank you to those who have taken the time to read this blog, I wanted to take some questions and spend some time to track down and research answers for anyone who took the time to submit them. While thanking the readers I also want to specifically thank commenter phlduzp. I’m still getting used to the back end for this site and didn’t see your comment for a couple of days, so apologies for getting it up late. As I continue to get used to the day to day of this monster I will get better with that, along with little things like the quality and content of the writing. Without further ado, here are a selection of your questions:

OK Mr Stats guy. We know that Ball State played back to back 3OT games back in 2000. Has any team in NCAA Basketball history ever won back to back 3OT games before Drexel’s feat last week? I want to know if Drexel’s accomplishment was truly historic?I cheated on this one, but ESPN Stats and Information says that no one has ever won back to back triple OT games. In the future, all teams that win in 3OT will be going for a Drexel in their next game. This will hopefully spur on the next big advertisement campaign: “Drexel Hoops: Take us to triple OT, Get Squashed”

How many points in the paint do we have that wasn’t by a guard or a put back of a rebound? Do they even keep track of that? The short answer is, I’m sure that information is available to the coaching staff. The long answer is that the holiday season and endless travel has kept me from undertaking a project I’ve really wanted to do, which is shot chart all the Drexel games. If anyone from DU wants to offer a token of peace, getting that information would be invaluable to the blog. If not… eh, I’ll get there eventually.

Leaving no stone un-turned, I have dug through some available stats on this and give or take a basket from Kazembe that was deemed a jumper, DU’s frontcourt has made 62 points (7.75ppg) this season in the paint, not including putbacks.

I would also like to nominate nicknaming the frontcourt “BWAR”, as in be ready for war. Also conveniently an acronym for Bah, William, Abif and Ruffin.

Super thanks to Mike Tuberosa and his staff. Many moons ago I was bugging him weekly for extra stat sheets than those that were available through the website. Now everything is up there, from points in the paint to play by play’s to lead changes. It’s a real value add to DrexelDragons.com for this year and I encourage everyone to check it out.

Which Virginia team will win the CAA?Always a great question. The cop out answer is Towson, since the tourney is in Baltimore and they’re the home team* (they can’t walk there, so there’s that) this year. But you asked for a Virginia school, and the ole Jagerbomb is still the commish, so lets be honest, it’ll be a Virginia school. James Madison has been awful, the worst secret in the league is that their AD has been wanting to fire their coach since the Phillies were good, and not even Andre Nation is likely to bring them back (although Nation is exactly what the doctor ordered for that turnover prone road ragged team).

So by default, the winner is: William and Mary! Tony Shaver’s Ivy league All Star Team is studying their way to wins these days. Their best win may be at Rutgers, but I love the way they’ve adjusted to the rule changes and they have real players in Thornton and Beasthoven. Congrats W+M on breaking the drought!

What was your favorite Drexel hoops trip?

I was asked that question earlier this year as well, by a ranking Drexel Athletics executive. At the time I said the Albuquerque trip for the NCAA’s for the womens team. Me and some others paid our way onto the Athletics charter for that, and the weekend crashing the hotel with the team, staff, spirit groups, and alumni was fantastic. If I had to limit it to the mens trips, it would have to be the Bashir Mason buzzerbeater game. This will surprise many, but I will miss playing VCU in the new CAA, as those games were often epic. I won’t miss playing true road games in the CAA tourney.

When will the other shoe drop?Lets see how Freddie Wilson slides into the rotation. If adding him will help take some of the scoring pressure off of Tavon and help him settle down, this team becomes very scary again. Right now, with current health, I don’t see anything on either the eye test side or the statistical side that sees another shoe in sight. Have no fear, they still won’t be able to inbound, nor will they ever take the other team by surprise, but they’ve become all that Bru has ever asked of his teams: Good at what they do. Pray for health and the return of Chris Fouch’s hot hand, but going into the Wilson addition, there’s no other shoe in sight. Start getting adjusted to rooting for the first really good, potentially elite, basketball team at Drexel since… well probably since two years ago… but before that, since Malik.

Thanks to everyone for the questions. I’ll be looking to do this at least monthly through the season, and possibly more often if the questions/comments keep flowing in. Tomorrow: A Drexel/Davidson preview prior to Sunday’s Freddie Wilson unveiling.

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5 Comments

I believe you may be shorting BWAR on points in the paint. Looking at Hoop-Math.com (http://hoop-math.com/Drexel2014.php) and doing some math, I'm coming up with 31 made, non-putback shots at the rim – good for 62 points.

In the meantime, may I recommend RAWB (playing against them results in a RAWBing of boards – plus goes in the order they appear) or, my favorite, BRAW – if you come in our paint expect a brawl, but since we don't lose we have no need for the L.

If you are adding the numbers in the putback column to obtain the 24, I believe those are putback attempts.

For Kaz, I have 36 FGA with 63.9% at the rim for 23 FGA@rim. He makes 56.5% of those for 13 FGM@rim. Of those, 23.1% were on putbacks giving him 3 FGM on putbacks. 13 FGM@rim – 3 FGM on putbacks = 10 FGM on non-putbacks.

Doing that for Dartaye, Rodney and Mohamed, I get 13, 7 and 1 respectively for a total of 31 FGM on non-putbacks, good for 62 points.